Commentary on Chapter 8

Abstract

The accountability of third-sector organisations is a contentious issue for donors, NGO managers and academics. While in the corporate sector accountability has traditionally been limited to maximising shareholder profits (Friedman, 2007), critical perspectives on accounting have extended to non-financial information for a much wider group of stakeholders (Mook, 2010). The main driver for broadening our understanding of who is a stakeholder and what type of engagement matters is an emancipatory agenda, which reclaims the democratic ideals of voice representation and influence (O’Dwyer, 2005), and in so doing provides an opportunity to marry social accounting (SA) with critical management studies (CMS). Gibbon and Angier work at this under-studied intersection to build grounded theory on the dynamic processes by which accountability takes place in third-sector organisations (Mook, 2010).

Citation

Claeyé, F. (2011), "Commentary on Chapter 8", Hull, R., Gibbon, J., Branzei, O. and Haugh, H. (Ed.) The Third Sector (Dialogues in Critical Management Studies, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 225-228. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2046-6072(2011)0000001023